Greeting Habits of the World

Alternate title: In Quebec, I Didn’t Quite Kiss the Girl

The man approached me by at a writer’s conference in Guelph, Ontario. I was 18, juggling a hacky sack in the corner and feeling distinctly out of place in this gaggle of rich, middle-aged artsy types. “Allow me,” he began, “to greet you in the traditional Roman fashion.” And then he reached out and grabbed my forearm and waited patiently until I grabbed his in return. He gave our entangled arms a few good shakes and then wandered off, apparently satisfied. I shrugged and made another swoop at the refreshment table, musing how everybody just wants to say hello.

And it is true, in Nairobi, Toronto, Plymouth and Bukavu. Granted, in some societies of the world, people are a little more forbidding and unapproachable, but there is something in the human psyche that impels us to greet or acknowledge people we meet – whether a dreamy old man, lost in the traditions of a dead society or the landscaper who flipped me the bird when I ran a red light on my bike.

And in case you were worried that I might be gearing up for a socio-philosphical take on how the world says “Hi”, don’t worry. This is, after all, Facebook.

When I was 8, my family camped with the Masaai in Kenya for a month. The Masaai people are known to greet people by spitting in their face. We were warned of this eventuality and I was, of course fascinated with the idea. Who says that you can’t be culturally appreciative at 8? My mom, however, cramped my education by absolutely forbidding me to do it.

In East Africa, greeting is a hallowed ritual; every time you meet a friend, you shake his hand. It also common for male (or female) friends to continue holding onto the other’s hand as they talk. I very quickly learned the implications this sort of thing carries in the Western world, but yes, I have held a guy’s hand and walked down the street with him. It was, as they say, cultural.

A very large part of my life in Arua, Uganda, revolved around the Taekwondo club I was a member of. It was there that I learned to bow. Bow on entering the gym, bow before exercises, bow before having the crap beaten out of you (or vice versa) and bow after. And bow when the coach screams at you. Apparently, traditional martial arts are beneficial because they teach you to respect people and have self control. This is probably true: all I know is that after two years, I was acting like a bobble head. I would play soccer, and when someone pushed me, I kicked his legs out and then bowed to him when he hit the ground and then bowed to the ref when he called for a penalty kick and then gradually bowed my way off the field as my team screamed for a substitute. Yes, it was hard to make the transition between contact and non contact sports.

Last winter, my family moved into a very small house in a small town an hour northwest of Montreal. Our intent was to learn French in the shortest time possible and our friends assured us that Repentigny was a bastion of Quebec language and culture. On our first night there, the pastor and his wife came to visit us. After the initial greetings, his wife turned to us kids hanging around in the kitchen and said: “I am going to teach you how to greet in true Quebec fashion, and that means kissing.” I smirked. The last time I was in Quebec I was 7, and a little askance at the French conception of greeting. At 18, however, opinions change. My training went well, and after a few mishaps where I learned how to pick which side to start on, I felt ready. The first Sunday, at the little church we attended a new acquaintance was introducing me to the youth.
“And this is Marie,” he gestured.
“Plaisir”, I said, and leaned in reaching for her shoulders. At about half way there, I paused. She had not moved. Everyone was, in fact, looking at me as I balanced at a 45 deg angle. Sacre merde, I thought, this is awkward. I quickly straightened, vigorously shook her extended hand and never, ever again initiated a “traditional French greeting”.

How we greet people very much reflects our fascinating diversity as the human race. So it is always a little sad to return to Canada and the West, where it is considered unnecessary and ill-advised to say hi to strangers, and it is thought overly exuberant and needlessly unhygienic to shake your friend’s hand every time you see him. And that is why I intend to be different, a mover and a shaker in our society. And the next time that I see you, I’m going to spit in your face. Hey, it’s a sign of affection.

 

I Scream

“I know there is a God because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him, and I have touched him.”

Kigali, 1994: UN Force Commander Romeo Dallaire met several times with the men who planned the Rwandan genocide in an attempt to negotiate refugee transfers. Before entering these meetings, he would deliberately remove and unload his pistol, in fear that he would lose control of himself and kill the Interahamwe leaders. He struggled with these meetings, wondering if it was ethical to deal with “the devil” for people’s lives. But he had little choice; he was struggling with insufficient men and resources against one of the darkest chapters of human history and the accompanying global indifference. He was a man who, to quote Stephen Lewis, screamed into the void. But no one listened, no one cared, no one heard.

Ultimately, the men and children who performed the massacres will carry the blame for their actions. The Interahamwe and the militia, the Presidential guard and the civilians who systematically tried to wipe out an entire people group will be judged for the blood they spilt. Yet while 800,000 Rwandans stumbled to the slaughter, the rest of the world did nothing to hold them back. They were too concerned with their money, politics and their own safety. Quoting from Dallaire’s book, Shake Hands with the Devil: “Ultimately, led by the United States, France and the United Kingdom, this world body [the UN], aided and abetted the genocide in Rwanda. No amount of cash or aid will ever wash its hands of Rwandan blood”. The world saw it happening, but because there no benefit for them in interfering, they sat back and watched. The list of countries that directly advanced the killings or remained simply apathetic is a long one. But it is neither in my knowledge nor my right to label a scapegoat for this travesty. I am writing this because I now live in the West, and I lead a cloyingly easy life. I did nothing to deserve it, and I should never be so base as to deny through inaction the rights that I enjoy to another.

Dallaire’s conclusion is not that we should continue to point fingers, but that we should become accountable so that this will never be allowed to happen again. The priorities of governments need to change: our basis for involvement in anything needs to derive from the belief that all men, women and especially children were created equal by God. The American officer who told Dallaire that 800,000 Rwandan lives were only worth the lives of 10 American soldiers was wrong. We cannot allow our cocoon of blessings to blind us to the fact that some things in this world must be protected, and that to protect them, we must be ready to sacrifice time, money, and yes, blood.

It took me two months to finish Dallaire’s book, because each time I picked it up, it ruined my evening. And I already knew the Rwandan story. Dallaire did not cheapen the account by sensationalizing it, but as I turned each page, my heart was pulled and my stomach revolted at the utter savagery of the genocidaires and the indifference of the world. I hope that you, too, read this book, and I hope that it ruins two months of your life when you read about the children who died, the children who killed and those who were left behind. I hope that it makes you cry, lose your appetite and rail pointlessly against an event in the past. I hope this, because we, as humans, cannot afford to be caught on the sidelines again.

 

Yawn

He yawned. It was, after all, 6:15 and he had just dragged himself out of bed for a jog. As his mouth gaped, his head turned aside in the direction of a group of students on their way to school. Several of them had turned with a smile in the direction of the white boy stumbling along in the dawn, and they yawned in response. They too, had gotten up early and were walking a long distance. It was a fertile ground and time for a yawn to catch on.

A boda boda [bicycle taxi] man, trying to stay warm on his rough bench, leaning against a tree, opened his mouth in a huge, exaggerated effort to draw breath into his tired lungs, and let his head sag. There were no potential customers yet, anyways. He did not realize that a middle aged lady had subconsciously noted his yawn.

She hadn’t, in fact, been looking at him. She had been looking past him towards the chattering students in their smart white shirts and black trousers, carrying their textbooks. She was thinking about her own son, who should have been in secondary school with them, but couldn’t because she couldn’t afford the school fees. The thought made her hurry on, an enormous bundle of firewood poised on her head. She didn’t yawn right away, because she had been walking briskly towards town since 5 in the morning. The urge for more oxygen, however, had sparked, and it slowly welled within her till she loosed a small, sharp yawn, quickly cut off. She needed to find a customer for this load of wood if she was going to earn 500 bob [30 cents] for yesterday’s work.

The man who saw her quick yawn had no right to repeat the act. But repeat it he did, stretching luxuriously in the cushioned comfort of his Pajero. Then he bent down to tune the radio as his SUV hummed into town. His yawn, however, was a dead end yawn, and no one saw it through the closed windows of his UN SUV.

Thankfully, however, for the longevity of this chain of yawns, there were many others about at this early hour. Across the road, a squat, cream coloured bank with red tile work was already attracting a crowd of pensive customers. A double and more ornate than practical chain link fence encircled the building. A young security guard in an immaculately pressed uniform leaned comfortably out the window of his pretentious guard booth, bantering easily with those in line. His eyes followed the woman with the firewood automatically, and several in the crowd followed his gaze. He thought of his own mother, but he did not yawn because he was young, it was a vigorous new day and he had a good job – provided he could keep it. With this comforting thought, he officiously clicked open the padlock and took up his position just outside the bank doors.

It is possible that our friend would have spent his day in the patient doldrums of a small town bank guard, leaning on his rifle and thinking the endless, repetitive thoughts of a bored young man, except for the rather curious series of events that were happening that morning.

Halfway down the line was a man in a pressed suit two inches too long wearing a Chinese diver’s watch. Suit Man scratched his head, thoughtfully, miles away from the gossip in front of him, his eyes on the road. Also, he yawned.

The security guard, with a quick eyes and wit, saw the gaping action and started to smile. But the action jarred as he saw a pair of nimble hands easing their way into a lady’s purse. Perhaps out of pity, the guard waited a fraction of a second as the skinny arms retreated with a creased wad of bills before he shouted.

“Wewe!! – “, he began, harshly, stepping quickly forward, grabbing at the
youth with one hand, and the other swinging the gun. The peaceful line exploded into a maelstrom of wrath, colour and curiosity. Curses and screams from the offended citizens and a silent, desperate wriggle of a ragged jersey as the boy tried to escape. Numbers triumphed, and soon a bespectacled man and a burly woman were holding him from behind while the guard was wrenching his arm and returning the few bills. One hand roughly on the boy’s neck, he paused, considering. Then he shrugged, glanced at the sickening mixture of fear and resignation on the boy’s face and marched inside alone.

The manager was appropriately impressed. He smiled benignly at the young man standing proud but self conscious on the cool tiles. “But how was it that you saw him do it?”
The guard smiled suddenly. “The man behind him – he yawned.” And they laughed together at the total absurdity of it. The police would be along eventually to apprehend what remained of the young thief after the irate mob finished with him, and then his customers could put down their sticks and return to business. He leaned over to shut the window as the first of the thuds and shrieks drifted in.

 

Of Chivalry and Automatic Doors

I know a girl who likes to harp on the absence of chivalrous gestures in guys today.  Like me, for instance.  This is, I think, a bit of a hasty and unfair judgment of men today: I consider myself quite genteel, really, at heart.  And if this isn’t always evident, it is the fault of society. 

 

And that was only partly tongue in cheek. 

 

My parents were old school in their education of my brothers and I – we were force fed books written in the 18^th century which contained highly unbelievable anecdotes about guys laying their coat down over mud puddles for girls to walk over.  And the fact that this doesn’t happen anymore evinces, apparently, decay in society. 

 

 I did not take these lessons to heart.  The earliest interaction I can remember having with a non related female was, as a five year old, attacking a group of teenage neighbor girls with my water gun.  The whole incident ended badly: when kindergarten boys harass older girls, they fail to account for many important facts, like that the girls can totally kick their butts.  A blonde gorgon picked me up and started swinging me in a circle.  I dimly remember a brief flight that ended on contact with a brick wall and a landing in a flower bed. 

 

But as a guy grows, his attitude towards girls takes a dramatic turn around and I became willing to give the whole gamut a go.   The world may have changed since the 1800s, but if men can reinstate these trivial gallantries, perhaps women can be persuaded to return to the kitchen.  

 

… I’m joking.  Put the spatula down. 

 

The classic example of gentlemanly behavior is to open doors for the, quote, weaker sex.  I grew up in Africa where I didn’t do much of this, due to a very different cultural approach to man-woman relations and a lack of doors to be opened in the first place.  But last year I moved, because that’s my life story.    

 

Several months ago, on a damp, pseudo-spring day in Quebec, I was nearing a mall entrance when I saw a girl approaching.  Being an upstanding young gentleman – how she looked was entirely coincidental – I quickly moved ahead of her to open the doors.  And the doors opened.  On their own.  Believe me, few things look quite as stupid as moving in front of a girl to wave open a pair of automatic doors.  Food for thought there. 

 

But I’m persistent, if not bright.  A few weeks later, I saw a middle aged lady stalking towards a pair of good, old fashioned manual doors.  With a grand gesture and a slightly cocky pirouette, I swung one open for her.  With a look of immense loathing, she walked past me and opened her own door.  Oh, I thought, quaking against the wall. 

 

Slightly jaded by these experiences, I decided to momentarily tone down my ebullient gallantries.  Until I was riding on a local transit bus and a quite elderly lady with a walker began making her way to the door.  Obviously, I stood quickly and made my forward to help her lift the walker out the door and over the snow bank.  About then, the bus emitted a low, hydraulic hum and lowered itself slowly.  A long, gently sloped ramp flipped out, straddling the snow bank and reaching to the sidewalk.  I stopped, laughed, sat back down and decided to let society decay as much as it wanted.     

 

Yes, there are more than a few times that I’ve gotten a smile for my efforts.  And, depending on the age of the recipient, a roll of the eyes.  But last year, I did write a short story about a guy (bearing a faint similarity to me) who performs a “trivial gallantry” and gets hit by a SUV.  I’m not cynical.  At all. 

 

It is not fair for parents or vocal females to expect guys to strictly adhere to a code of action that has become redundant, impractical and often unwanted.  Whether or not it is desirable is an arbitrary question: to open or not open a door isn’t ethical, it’s the vestiges of a society that has since changed dramatically.  An outdated appeal to tradition and expectations that no longer exist.  The world has moved on. 

 

And yes, I have too.  Don’t look down at me for it – it’s for my health.  I am now very, very careful around SUVs and liberated women.  My parents should be so proud of me.  

 

Birthday Mumblings, 18-19

You can thank Johnny Cash for this post. 

 

My plan was to spend a few short minutes dozing over my laptop, nursing a glass of Gatorade and a sprained wrist, dreading tomorrow’s work.  And then, “Get Rhythm” popped up on my playlist and I decided to cheer up and that sleep, after all, wasn’t that important.

 

Two years ago today, I was in Arua, Uganda, about to turn 17 and musing about feeling the need to do something memorably idiotic to commemorate the occasion.  Like go on a joy ride in our Land Cruiser.  I decided against this because I was afraid of getting shot by a drunk soldier, and I’d already rolled over once in our Cruiser.  So in the end I sat under the harsh glare of a solar powered light, freshly showered after taekwondo practice and sweating again in the tropical evening.  The next morning I ran 20 km in “crummy time”, and started school. 

 

A year ago, I was sitting in a frigid, damp basement of a small townhouse in Quebec.  I couldn’t stand up straight because the ceiling was only five feet high.  My post meandered on about a snow camp where I did my first polar bear swim, and the regretful realization that I could never again sing “I am 17 going on 18”.  It ended on a reflective note: I decided to stop blogging for a bit.  The next day, I ran 8 km in -20 deg C and returned to try to spoon porridge into a frozen jaw and start the frenzy of grade 12.    

 

And today.  I’m freshly showered after kickboxing and my right wrist is throbbing so bad, I’m having a hard time hitting the keys.  Work was slightly more brutal than normal: we began the day clambering about a 40 foot scaffold in a -30 deg C breeze.  Thankfully, my foreman realized that, under the circumstances, maybe we should work inside for the day.  (We might drop a three thousand dollar window.)  Once I was able to peel off two of my five layers, work started to look up. 

It doesn’t look I’ve changed that much over the last two years: not enough sleep and spending hours dreaming about food.  This, however, will be my first birthday without my family, which is a bigger deal than I thought it would be: I feel vaguely pathetic that the only way I’ll mark it is by buying coffee for the guys at work, and I probably won’t even tell them why.  Ha.  And before you feel too sorry for me, yes, there are some people who know. 

 

So where am I?  I can answer that geographically.  Where am I going?  To work, tomorrow.  Where have I been?  Everywhere.  How am I doing?  I’m finding the rhythm, son, finding that rhythm.        

 

Not Without My Lunch Pail

Experiences of a Mundy on a construction site

 

Many, many thoughts of varying caliber are born when you spend hour after hour sweeping vast expanses of floor on construction sites.  Thoughts, realizations about life and lines from the same stupid song, over and over again.  For instance: I spend a lot of time sweeping, and yet the floors are never clean.  You know you’ve found your life calling when you have an existent ional crises over sweeping floors.  This is not to mislead you into thinking my job is not intellectually advanced or without its delicate challenges.  I must always keep one eye and ear tuned for the subtle hints that my foremen give when they want to give me a new job.  ”MIKE!!!”  They have begun calling me “Mike” instead of “Michael” because it is easier to scream one syllable than two.  Sometimes they call me Bob, if they forget who I am.  When they remember, they call me Congo boy.    

Maybe you’ve never wondered what happens when an English nerd of a Missionary Kid abandons the balmy depths of darkest Africa for the job world of Southern Ontario.  Well, not much.  He works in construction and waits for someone to approach him with a writing contract which probably won’t happen because he hasn’t written a book yet.  He wrote this because he reasoned that if he spends 55 hours a week doing something, there has to be a story in there, somewhere.  

So at quarter till 7 every morning, I wheeze into the parking lot of a half finished church.  Crunch over frost and frozen mud.  Take down snow fence.  Flick on lights.  Unlock all doors.  Open toolboxes and slump on chair, feeling sorry for self and waiting for self to die.  The foreman walks in and tells me I will be installing skylights all day. He pauses:  “Try not to be so spastic up there on the roof, okay?”  Apparently, I’m not the only one thinking about my demise.      

Fortunately, I have a good pair of work boots.  According to the salesgirl, they have the new, advanced Tarantula anti slip soles – which I took to mean I wouldn’t fall as much if I wore them.  The girl assured me this was true and followed me around the store until I bought them.  So it was with confidence that I climbed on the roof, which had a slope of about 60 degrees.  I worked with the careful movements of a man who knows that if he falls, he will get one heckuva wedgie from his harness.  But special boots and caution nonwithstanding, I am still an uncoordinated teenager, so I fall twice, sliding down the frosty plywood as my nailbag gently showers screws on the floor below us.  I wonder: how on earth do tarantulas survive in the wild? 

 Someone calls break and they cajole money for coffee out of my wallet by joking about getting me fired.  I take this with good grace and politely tell a concrete worker I can’t give him a cigarette because I don’t smoke.  And no, I didn’t have a girlfriend, and no, I didn’t want to rent one.  Break is spent telling stories about spectacularly inept laborers.  Like the one who tried to rent a “lumber stretcher”, and yes, two or three of my own spectacular misadventures.  I’m somewhat of a local celebrity after I incinerated a cheese sandwhich in a microwave at a sewage plant.  (Long story.) 

 

The foreman tells me the structural longevity of this wall will depend on the threaded rods I had just installed.  When he put it that way, I felt bad for having used a sledgehammer. 

 

After lunch, a few others are in the parking lot, idling like laborers paid by the hour.  A girl walks by and three heads swivel quickly.  Later, everyone else goes inside and her boyfriend cruises by with her in an enormous black Dodge pickup and gives me a death stare.  The trucks stops and he considers getting out so I quickly pick up my shovel again.  

 

I am assigned, as the youngest and theoretically nimble, to assist a somewhat clumsy welder weld some extra plates onto some metal braces on the very peak of the roof.  After a few long, slightly illegal climbs up a old scaffolding with the welding cables, I handed him his tools and took my position on a plank below him and waited.  Bored, but happy in the late summer sunshine and watching the bustle below me.  And so, because I’m a redneck construction worker, I composed some free poetry: 

 

harnesses, but un-tethered, fifty feet up.

chunks of molten metal splatter, splutter and sizzle,

around me as I cling

to my plank with a narrow complacency

 

below me, red helmets, orange and yellow raise a wall

when with a curse, the welder drops a tool:

(with spastic abandon, he let it fall)

and the framers swear in a sweaty indignation

at this five pound metal apparition

that fell

like

an uholy

messenger of heaven.

and I smile in quiet apathy

because i am paid hourly

 

Yes, I’ve learnt a lot since starting my job.  One of the carpenters I work with gives me sage advice such as “If it doesn’t work, beat the jalapeños out of it.”  He doesn’t say jalepenos, but I’m sure that’s what he meant.  Truly, I have one of the better jobs in existence.  People pay me and I take my favorite sledgehammer – the one with the taped handle – and I beat the blossoming jalapeños out of some unoffending chunk of metal and wood.  And sometimes I build things. 

 

To end, I’d like to share a childish misconception I once held.  Back when I was young (and how long ago that was), I saw everybody in any trade as a professional.  All police men were poster-boy police men because, well, they were in uniform: they were all cookie cutter perfection.  The same for doctors, bakers, and construction workers: I assumed they were all competent and able, simply because they were in that profession.  Maybe you’ve thought along these lines as well: people in a profession are generically good.  So next time you see a construction site and are admiring, perhaps, the way everyone seems to know what they’re doing: think about me, my sledge hammer, and my poetry. 

 

And don’t stand under the scaffolding.   

 

All Powerful Mush

Omniscient Mush Theory

 

Be warned, you may need to read this twice. 

  

Many of my Christian friends and probably objectivists in general like to toss around the statement “there are no absolutes” as the most easily refutable worldview.  The logical dismantling of this phrase takes no genius to find – it is itself an absolute.  Thus the claim falls by its own sweeping self-contradictory nature.  Or so people believe. 

But pause, take a deep breath, and think: few realize the logical defensibility of this illogical statement.  Reflect.  Logic operates based on the absolute that something cannot be and not be at the same time.  Thus, the statement, in denying absolutes, denies the foundation and hence the ability of the logical system of thought to judge it.  Of course, it is by logic that this logically fallacious statement attains logical consistency: logically self contradictory, but also logically supportable.  Is it really impossible for a statement to be illogical according to a system of thought that is based on absolutes when said statement has denied the existence of absolutes?

            Did we just parse a nonsense statement?  Realize, again, that labelling it nonsense implies a system of thought denied.  Of course, the sensibility of this conclusion derived from a circular logic-esque approach, but an abstract world of no absolutes has all the advantageous qualities of interchangeable, all-powerful mush.  In the Omniscient Mush Theory, the origin of a conclusion remains purely incidental.  Subjectivists – freed from any obligation of order or sense – could sensibly call objectivists wrong just as much as objectivists could call them wrong.   

            The implications of total subjectivism appear terrifying in their infinite possibilities.  Why should an unwilling individual restrict his pleasure seeking tendencies to follow a society’s arbitrarily selected rules or guidelines?  Why should he restrain any of his carnal impulses – or, even exist at all?  Alas, as much as objectivists wish to point to the disappearances of any vestige of order or morality along with all sciences and maths as a consequence of consistent application of total subjectivity, they have once again fallen prey to using a rational (in this case illogical) cause and effect style of thinking — why should not science take enormous leap forwards under such parameter-less conditions?  No, it makes no sense: attempting to think through a world order that denies intuitive thought processes is mind boggling in its utter incomprehensibility.  True subjectivism makes a mass of ultimately pointless mush: no points or conclusions can be drawn from it and one cannot deconstruct the world and its foibles through the lenses of subjectivity.  One cannot dice, slice, or dissect mush.  

            This futile, if entertaining, exercise in abstract thought to pin down an essentially pointless topic clearly illustrates an important point.  The entire question of the possibility of “there are no absolutes” can technically be defended through turns-of-phrases and the sheer, to state the obvious, subjectivity of it.  Yet to approach that worldview by its polar opposite: the application of this theory can but lead to a deterioration of all things, including the sanity of the thinker.  Tempting – not really.  Ultimately, however, it comes down to a personal choice.  No, not which side is true, but which side one believes.  If one chooses subjectivism: in its own, perverted reasoning, he has chosen to inhabit an unassailable fortress and his objective friends cannot argumentatively dissuade him from this.  (In reality, at this point, one is forced to respond with the inevitable: but why shouldn’t he be persuaded?  “Follow all logic” makes an equally absolute statement as “follow no logic”.)  But to follow intuition, emotion, perception, memory and indeed desire, leads one to the equally solid house of objectivity – ironic as it may appear for personal feelings to lead one there.  From a belief in the objective, one must venture forth to identify the nature of the objective, but the first step in finding truth is to acknowledge its existence.  To sum the question up in an inescapably simple manner: either one believes there are no absolutes, or that there are.  And, to defend the twisting confusion of this diatribe: the attempted dissection of mush can get messy.     

 

 

 

A Question of Intervention

(A brief look into my mind and at the way I make decisions in life.)

In life, one makes decisions. Whether these decisions are good or bad depends greatly on what your decision is. Sometimes, deciding to do the right thing is a struggle because one’s carnal flesh struggles bitterly against that nagging conscience in your mind. Other times, deciding to do the right thing is tough because you’re absolutely clueless and you have a piece of lemon jelly bean stuck between your molars.

A few nights ago, walking through a plaza parking lot, I saw a young black man and a middle aged Chinese man attempting to break into a large white van. I was (am) white, young, in work clothes, eating jelly beans and minding my own business. I knew I should do something: I was brought up in a good home and I took a First Aid course. I knew intuitively, that something, somehow was my fault. Mid-stride I froze, one leg quivering in the air as my quickly exercised it’s monumental powers of discernment and decided on a course of action.

I have great faith in the Ontario police force. I know that if I call 911, they will come screaming onto the scene in 5 short minutes. But I don’t have a phone. So my mind changes approaches.

My rather wild imagination considers the possibilities that they are terrorists. This is comforting: if terrorists can’t break into an old van, the war on terror has been greatly over-hyped.

But I’m also proud of my ability to pick locks, so I snicker at their awkward attempts to break in.

And yet I care about other people (shockingly, I do), so I considered going over and punching out the widow for them.

But I care about people, so if they are actually trying to steal it, I consider going over and punching them out.

I’m also practical, so I doubt I can take on two men after a full day of work. But then, I did have steel toed boots and Utility knife with a new blade in my pocket.

I’m very practical, so I bet that if I screamed, threw stones, and ran into the nearest store, I could get help. But that could be awkward if the van actually belongs to them. Well, screaming would be awkward either way.

I’m also feeling clever and witty, so I tell myself that I’m not sure where GMC panel vans are on the list of desirable vehicles, but they can’t be too high. This sounds so funny; I repeat it twice and decide to tell it to my friends later. (And the police, should the need arise.)

At this point I was losing my balance and starting to tip, so I took another step. Took it in a very decisive manner. I’d just gone shopping and bought a pound of jelly beans for 89 cents and had envisioned a peaceful evening on my bed, picking out the licorice flavored beans and reading “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Why did I have to confronted with this moral enigma?

… I also can’t concentrate very well, so noticed that someone had cut down the row of spruce trees that used to grow on this road. This grieves me, until I notice the stumps are old and weathered, so they must have been cut down last year already. Given I walk on this road daily, my powers of observation leave something to be desired.

And so I conclude: I suck at decisions. That decided, I stopped and watched them for a while, and ate more jelly beans. It occurred to me that they might try to rob me and take the can of baked beans I’d bought for lunch at work tomorrow. I keep moving, aware of my selfishness.

I tried to justify it: if they are trying to steal such an ugly vehicle, they must really need it. And they are so incredibly incompetent, they cannot be chronic thieves. And if it belongs to them, they can just figure out how to get in on their own.

So, in then end, what did I do?

Nothing. I’m a writer, so I walked on, and when I got home, I wrote a story about it.

If your GMC van was stolen on the night of November the 19th I am deeply sorry and know that next time, I should have screamed and thrown jelly beans.

 

My World

I’m eighteen and I’m happy.

I feel somewhat guilty for this.  I’m white, male and Christian so I feel vaguely guilty every time I open the newspaper.  As a Canadian, I participate in our “shame based heritage” of apologizing to dead people for what other dead people did to them.  I also get angry at a lot of things, because almost everyone I know from work, school and family spends large amounts of time discussing how screwed up the world is.     

Well, it is.  Politics.  The environment.  School.  Social “morals”.  Work ethic.  The youth.  Youth.  Yep, I’m all set to inherit a hugely screwed up planet.  At least we’ll have plenty to talk about.

There was a time I eagerly participated in these discussions with the others.  I, in fact, wanted to save the world.  I couldn’t help but agree with them on topics of moral and social decay.  It bothered me, angered me, inflamed me, and frustrated me.  And these discussions happened all the time.  They appeared set on dedicating a large portion of their lives to wallowing in despair and for a while, I groaned with them. 

But then a seed of rebellion was planted in my heart and I became happy.  I was happy because I was playing soccer and I scored.  Stole the ball, faked one way, and sliced a beautiful curve that went precisely into the top corner.  In retrospect, there’s a lot there I could have done differently.  Like doing a little research to find out what pesticides were used on the grass.  Could have stopped, torn off those Nikes that were probably assembled by virtual slaves in some Southeast Asian sweatshop and spent the day picketing the Parliament buildings of my government that saw fit to award the Order of Canada to the country’s leading abortion doctor.  Maybe I should have done all that, and then groveled a bit because of my obscene carbon footprint.  But I didn’t.  I focused, lined my foot up, and I kicked the damn ball. 

Let’s be frank.  The government is far too intrusive with its peculiar brand of enforced “freedom” – yes, I do read the papers.  The economy shudders and groans, the environment disintegrates and people don’t really care.  I pick up the paper and columnists brutally, casually spit on my values and opinions.  A ten year old boy shuddered and died in a mission hospital I worked at because his family delayed too long in treating the malaria and the rural hospital couldn’t afford an ICU.  Friends of mine are brutally murdered: for their faith or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  And I am a member of a degenerate, lazy, whining, incompetent generation – sure, it’s all true. 

But this is also my world, it is the only I got and I am spending my only life on it.  

Utopia may have been 50 years ago in the “good old days”.  I feel the problems of today – that’s why it hurts to discuss them.  But far too often I lack the backbone or the drive to do anything about it.  Our problems won’t go away if we ignore them, but we may as well be honest: gathering in our social groups to fume about it won’t either.  Nothing is so disgusting as a righteous and idle anger: be angry, and be active, or shut up and continue living with it.  It’s hard enough to be inspired with the weight of a crumbling world heaped around your head: depression has never invigorated anyone to improve anything.    

Tell me I’m burying my head in the sand and I might not deny it.  Tell me to shut up and live different, and I will at least shut up.  Tell me I’m misleading myself into apathy and I’ll tell you to live your life in a spasm of justified, righteous anger if you want to, but leave off my world. 

 

A Protest

I attended a political rally once.  For a cause I believed in, obviously.  Health Canada wants to regulate and strangle the natural healthcare industry with its bureaucratic tentacles and I want them to take a hike.  To tell them this, I got a ride with an uncle to Queen’s Park in Toronto for a “Bill C-51” rally.

 

We were pathetic.  We assembled in front of a statue of King George VII on a horse.  Under his kindly gaze, we stood in a circle and talked while waiting for hordes of other protesters to join our righteous ranks.  They didn’t.  All 30 or 40 of us waved our placards with varying degrees of obnoxiousness, took pictures, talked a little and stared back at the joggers, bikers and park idlers.  It would have taken only one can of tear gas to disperse us, I thought, if the police would even see our somnolent gathering as a threat.  Evidently they didn’t, and I fell asleep standing up, uncomfortably grimy from a days work. 

 

After a half hour of apathetic rallying, we paraded through downtown Toronto.  Our protest straggled out over two city blocks, making us incredibly unimposing and basically invisible.  I will admit, I felt self conscious walking with a small knot of hippies and a lady who looked to be a witch.  They yelled insults at Stephen Harper and George Bush and chugged tomato juice and vegetarian pitas and I trailed behind them wondering what, exactly, I was doing there.  Groups of students looked at me questioningly whenever someone shrieked “Stop Bill C-51!” and I shrugged because I hadn’t actually researched it yet.  The only time I showed a spark of life was when two cars full of Spain supporters from the Euro Cup careened by.  I shot up two Vs and screamed back at them and my voice cracked and my hippie friends looked embarrassed and moved away from me. 

 

But there was one guy.  A young man in dress pants and a white, sweat stained shirt who stalked up the other side of the road, yelling at the top of his voice: “Avoid the mark of slavery!”  Clearly, he was deranged or very passionate because downtown Toronto on a burning summer day is not a very forgiving place to scream strange, unfashionable opinions.  Either way, I wanted to stop, buy him a drink and talk to him.    

 

But I didn’t, because he was on one side of the busy road, and I was on the other, trailing some poster wavers.  I spent the evening in a large conference hall listening to various speakers rail and fear monger shamelessly against Big Pharma.  I cradled my aching head in my hands and wished I was back at home.

 

I had (have) absolutely no idea what that young man’s reasoning is, or what he was yelling about, but I almost believed it, because he believed it and was brave enough to do something crazy about it.  For a moment, I thought about joining him: sweating, shouting, walking upstream and enduring the stinging looks and glares.  I think I know the truth, but I don’t storm down streets making a fool of myself.  For the viable reason that it would simply turn people off, but then other times, I hesitate even to bring my faith up in a conversation.  Everybody knows more or less what I believe and they don’t really care to pursue it.  So I slip into routine – making money, making friends and having fun – but in the back of my mind I want something more.  My life feels grey and dithering, and I want a purpose.    

 

 

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That guy has a blog.  I found it and read it and concluded that he was very confused.  Most people who read it, or see him on the streets, would be crueler and classify him as crazy.  Thank goodness when they see me or read what I write, they can tell I’m just normal and ordinary and safe.